Let basketball breathe again, by Patrick Omorodion

What goes around, they say, comes around. In 2017, the sports ministry, then headed by Solomon Dalung, brought out guidelines for elections into sports federations with an instruction that those which had their own constitutions should organise theirs.

The Nigeria Basketball Federation, NBBF was one of those which had a constitution approved by the Nigeria Olympic Committee, NOC and the sport’s world governing body, Federation of International Basketball Federation, FIBA.

The board headed by Tijjani Umar began plans to conduct its election and chose to hold it in Kano. However, the same sports ministry which had earlier given the NBBF and other Federations approval to organise their own elections ate its words, and said it would organise it with its own guidelines.

That was how NBBF had two elections, one in Kano by the incumbent board then and another by the sports ministry in Abuja for the group which Dalung supported. The NBBF thus had two boards, one headed by Umar and the second headed by Musa Kida.

That was the beginning of the crisis in NBBF. Dalung and Kida said that Umar had done two terms and therefore should step down. They however, failed to show which constitution or guidelines stipulated that two terms is the limit for federation presidents.

And now after two terms, Kida who has fallen out with most of his board members and majority of the stakeholders wanted to contest for the same third term he fought against.

With Basketball stakeholders kicking against Kida’s third agenda, he wants to plant his own candidate and has allegedly gone ahead to manipulate the electoral system. And the National Sports Commission, NSC, which is supposed to be neutral is turning blind eyes to his scheming.

To ensure his anointed candidate wins, Kida is alleged to be orchestrating the removal of state’s basketball association chairmen who are not playing ball with him and causing them to be replaced by his stooges with the help of state governors few weeks to the election.

Surprisingly, in the states he couldn’t penetrate the governors, the voting right is being withdrawn from the chairmen and transferred to unknown persons.

The NSC that is helping to restructure the Nigeria Football Federation, NFF following their recent failures, pretends it is not aware. The basketball family is saying they have had enough of Kida and the silence of the NSC on Kida’s manipulations is a big concern to most stakeholders.

NBBF has had enough crises since 2017 and stakeholders want their Federation to breathe a new life. Therefore NSC chiefs should not watch while Kida is frustrating stakeholders’ effort to make a change.

Following my observation and advice to the two top bosses of the NSC, Shehu Dikko and Bukola Olopade, chairman and director general respectively, Olopade reached out to me on WhatsApp at the weekend saying, “Why do you always like to do this? Go and ask again the role we have played”.

He hasn’t explained the role the NSC is playing to allow a level playing field and ensure the NBBF election is free, fair and rancour free so that another round of crisis doesn’t arise to further destroy the sport, except using his media aide to spin lies and run me down.

I am making an appeal to Olopade particularly because, as the director general, he is the one directly involved in making sure sports federations run properly to ensure our athletes have the best to be able to compete with others around Africa and the world. ‎He should be able to advice the chairman who should concern himself with policy decisions as the one who reports to President Bola Tinubu.

Dikko and Olopade should know that the little gain Nigeria made between 2013 and 2017 in the second term of Umar has been eroded under Kida. So when the basketball family, including those who supported him against Umar in 2017 say Kida should step aside, they know what they are saying.

Like the NFF under Ibrahim Gusau was using the performance of the Super Falcons to seek another term in office until the team crashed out of the women’s Nations Cup and also failed to qualify for the 2027 World Cup, Kida’s boast of a successful term because of the D’Tigresses feats has also fallen flat with the team’s crash at the recent World Cup.

Kida met that the men’s team, the D’Tigers, were champions of Africa, a feat they achieved for the first time in the competition’s history under the Umar board, but he couldn’t sustain the momentum since then.

He met that the NBBF brokered a five-year sponsorship deal worth $12 million for the men’s Premier League with the champions earning N20 million for the first time, higher than what the champions of the football league were earning at the time, but he scuttled that deal.

If the NSC is helping to restructure the NFF following their recent failures, it shouldn’t tell Nigerians that the Kida-led NBBF has been a success. The basketball family are saying they have had enough of Kida and the NSC should not allow Kida to impose anybody on them.

NBBF has had enough crises since 2017 and want their Federation to breathe a new life, therefore the NSC chiefs should not help Kida thwart their effort to make a change.

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